Hard man substitutes for the doveish Blanchflower

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Danny Blanchflower, apart from being a fine footballer for Tottenham Hotspur and Northern Ireland, is also remembered for being the first celebrity to snub This Is Your Life.

Confronted in 1961 by presenter Eamonn Andrews and his Big Red Book, on live television, Blanchflower said: “I consider this programme to be an invasion of privacy. Nobody is going to press gang me into anything.”

Unfortunately, his near-namesake David Blanchflower, who steps down in May, was unable to pressgang his teammates on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) into supporting his views on the economy.